I agree that as business owners, we often choose to do nothing than make much needed changes that would improve our situation. I guess it’s a combination of being “too busy” just running the shop from day to day, laziness, and perhaps fear of the unknown. Sometimes the “devil we know” is preferable to the “devil we don’t know.” I’ve been in the situation where I need to fire a staff member who wasn’t working out. This particular person would always come to work late, refuse to follow company procedures and wasn’t customer service oriented. Needless to say, the clients weren’t happy! The situation slowly escalated until the breaking point and eventually I fired him. However, in retrospect, I waited far too long. =(

I started a pet sitting business about a year ago and so far, I have been struggling. The business generates some profit each month but as you put it above, I am not “thriving” and barely can make ends meet like this. I know I need to change things, but unsure where to start. I feel like I need some sort of action plan. I suspect my marketing is inadequate but I don’t have the funds to hire a marketing firm or anything like that. Also, my graphics design ability is really limited. It seems like you need a lot of money to make money and I feel somewhat frustrated.